


Ten Ficlets

by Severina



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Community: tvrealm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-14
Updated: 2013-03-14
Packaged: 2017-12-05 07:29:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/720435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ten ficlets. Various characters, including 5 Daryl/Glenn stories.  Pre-series to Post Season Three.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ten Ficlets

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a "create stuff based on songs" challenge at LJ's tvrealm. The song titles were used as the titles for the stories.
> 
> * * *

01\. **Title:** Save a Prayer  
 **Characters/Pairing:** Daryl   
**Time Frame:** Pre-series  
 **Word Count:** 100

"I'm Marianne," the woman says, pushing greasy blonde hair that ain't ever been found in nature out of her eyes. "Merle says it's your first time."

Daryl bristles. Goddamn Merle. "So what if it is? Ain't like I need no special instructions for fucking."

The woman laughs, which only sets his teeth on edge. He tries not to eye the dirty sheets, the track marks on her arms.

"True enough," she says through her smoke; takes a deep drag before stubbing it out in the overflowing ashtray. "Come here now, honey. Let me show you a little bit of paradise."

 

02\. **Title:** Bad Moon Rising  
 **Characters/Pairing:** Andrea, Amy  
 **Time Frame:** Pre-Series  
 **Word Count:** 300

“We’ve got to get out,” Andrea says. She flicks the television off, tosses the remote onto the chair before slinging her suitcase up onto the bed. “Now.”

Amy wrinkles her nose. “Don’t you think you’re maybe overreacting?”

“Overreacting?” Andrea repeats. “Did you watch that report? At all?” 

"I saw shadows way in the back and a reporter with a lot of supposition and not a lot of facts."

"Those 'shadows' in the back were people eating other people!" Andrea shakes her hair out of her eyes, turns to the battered dresser. "God, Amy. Get your suitcase, now."

"Besides, that was in Albany. We're miles from—"

"Did you hear that?" Andrea interrupts. She freezes with her hand halfway into the top drawer, holds her breath. When the thump outside is repeated, she swallows; steps quietly across the room and reaches instead for the oversized purse next to the bed. The zipper sounds loud in the silence; the gun feels big and unwieldy in her palm.

She sees Amy's eyes go wide. "You don't even know how to use—"

Andrea hushes her with a look, but still feels ridiculous as she sidles to the window with the gun held up and at the side of her head, like some kind of movie cop getting ready to burst in on a drug ring. She flicks a finger carefully at the curtain.

It takes a moment for her eyes to adjust, even with the full moon shining on the parking lot. And at first she thinks maybe Amy is right – the television report has just spooked her, the noise she heard nothing more than an alley cat slinking through the night. 

Then she sees it. Not a human being. Not anymore.

"Leave your stuff," she says quietly. "We're running for the car."

 

03\. **Title:** Criminal Mind  
 **Characters/Pairing:** Daryl, Merle  
 **Time Frame:** Pre-Series  
 **Word Count:** 200

They come across the quarry on their third day on the road, eyes gritty from lack of sleep. They stay well back from the tree line, crouching among the brambles. Watching.

"Hell, they ain't even got nobody on watch," Merle says. "Easy pickin's, little brother."

Daryl squints, his gaze taking in each survivor. Couple of blondes. Guy with a beard, looks fit enough; another with a pot belly and a sour look on his face. A woman with long dark hair, her arm draped lightly over a young boy's shoulders. He squirms uncomfortably, leans back on his haunches. "They got kids, Merle," he says.

"Kids, women, old men," Merle agrees. "We go in, wait for the right moment. Then we strike. They'll never know what hit 'em. You with me?"

Daryl shrugs uneasily, settles his crossbow more firmly on his shoulder. Considers the merits of trying to convince Merle to continue on to the old hunting cabin, wait this thing out there, just the two of them. It ain't even like they need whatever these people got to offer, 'sides maybe the gas in their vehicles. But Merle is watching him, eyes hard and cold.

"I'm with you," Daryl says.

 

04\. **Title:** Head over Heels  
 **Characters/Pairing:** Daryl/Glenn  
 **Time Frame:** Episode 104  
 **Word Count:** 200

Goddamn chinaman, Daryl fumes. Lets himself get kidnapped right off the fucking street. Nearly gets himself killed. Nearly gets them all killed, and for what? A bunch of good Samaritans taking care of a bunch of old people that are gonna die sooner rather than later.

Daryl paces back and forth, tries to forget the way his stomach lurched when he heard the panic in Glenn's voice, when he saw him getting shoved into that car and couldn't reach him. How he felt the bile rise in his throat when the damn kid was swaying on that rooftop, smartass mouth covered with duct tape.

He waits until Rick is deep in conversation with the gangbanger, until T-Dog isn't looking. Then he grabs the kid by the shirt collar and tugs him into the nearest deserted hallway, fists a hand in his hair and shoves his tongue down his throat.

"Goddamn chinaman," he snarls when Glenn pushes him far enough away to nibble at his bottom lip.

Glenn rolls his eyes. "I'm Korean," he says, not for the first time. Or the fifth. Or the fifteenth.

"Yeah, yeah," Daryl says.

When he goes in for another kiss, Glenn is still smiling.

 

05\. **Title:** Need You Tonight  
 **Characters/Pairing:** Daryl/Glenn  
 **Time Frame:** Episode 105  
 **Word Count:** 551

They used to meet behind the old RV, sneak into the woods when no one was looking. At first it just felt dangerous and forbidden, like smoking cigarettes behind the gym at school. Not that he ever did that – just the smell of tobacco makes him want to hurl, and he always spent his spares working on the video game that he was sure was going to bring him fame and fortune before he hit twenty-one, because he was an idiot of epic proportions in high school. But after a while it just felt sort of pathetic, like maybe he was ashamed of who he is. Like maybe he was ashamed of being with Daryl. And it didn't matter how much Daryl insisted that they only had to hide because his racist asshole of a brother was also a racist homophobic asshole. He couldn't handle the way his stomach lurched whenever anyone looked at him, the way he couldn't meet anyone's eyes. He had to break it off.

But the last few days have rattled him – standing on the edge of that roof and feeling the wind buffeting his thin T-shirt, believing that at any moment the vatos would let go, send him plummeting to the ground. Returning back to the chaos of the camp, the smell of cordite and blood and shit in his nostrils; being nearly deafened by the constant gunfire. Burying their dead.

It's all too much.

When he pulls open the zipper to the tent, he's not surprised to find Daryl still awake. He hesitates in the entranceway, watches Daryl's head lift from the cot. The man's gaze tells him nothing, but Glenn's shoulders hunch anyway, hearing again all the hurtful, harmful things he said that last time they met in the grove – _You don't give a shit about me_ and _I can't keep doing this_ and _Your fucking brother means more to you than I do_ and mostly remembering the way the smile on Daryl's face at seeing him had faded and how Daryl had seemed to shrink and fade right in front of his eyes before he'd straightened his shoulders and stalked away. 

He's half ready to leave when Daryl nods, moves to push the blanket back almost imperceptibly. 

There's not much room on the cot, but Glenn makes it work, curls himself into Daryl's side. Feels the way Daryl goes rigid and still at the touch, and tells himself it doesn't matter if what he's feeling is not reciprocated. Daryl let him in. That's all that matters.

He opens his mouth and closes it half a dozen times, everything that he wants to say dying on his tongue. He tries to count the holes in the mesh of the tent; listens to Dale and Shane exchanging soft words at the change of watch. His own body only relaxes when Daryl's arm stretches across his shoulder, when Daryl's calloused fingertips brush gently against his skin. 

Maybe he doesn't have to say a word. He lifts a hand cautiously, lets his palm rest on Daryl's chest, just above his rapidly-beating heart. Shifts just enough so that his breath ghosts across Daryl's neck. 

When Daryl cups a hand around his shoulder, pulls him slowly but insistently closer, Glenn closes his eyes. 

They're going to be all right. 

 

06\. **Title:** Red, Red Wine  
 **Characters/Pairing:** Daryl/Glenn, Carol  
 **Time Frame:** Episode 106  
 **Word Count:** 200

It's been years since she's had wine – years since Ed would allow her to have more than half a glass with Christmas dinner – and it goes to her head more quickly than she expects. She starts thinking of things, options she never considered, and they continue whirling through her thoughts even as she tucks Sophia into bed, brushes her lips across her daughter's forehead. It doesn't matter how much she tells herself that her husband just died, that social conventions demand that she mourn him before she moves on. Once the idea is lodged in her brain, it won't leave. 

She fortifies herself with a last glass of wine before she creeps carefully down the corridor to the door of Daryl's room.

A gentle push with the palm of her hand pops the door open, but her pre-planned excuse – I just thought I'd see if you had an extra blanket – dies on her lips when she sees the tangle of bed sheets, Daryl's eyes shut tight, his fingers tangled in Glenn's hair and Glenn… 

She closes the door softly behind her, pads quietly back to the kitchen and steals another bottle of red wine.

She tells herself she won't cry.

 

07\. **Title:** Dreaming  
 **Characters/Pairing:** Daryl/Glenn  
 **Time Frame:** Season One  
 **Word Count:** 100

They'd have a little apartment. Nothing fancy, just a place to lay their heads at night. A good kitchen though, because they'd be making enough money that they could buy actual food. He'd make some of the traditional dishes that his mother taught him, get Daryl to expand his horizons. Sometimes they'd get the weekend off and go camping, let Daryl be in his element.

Glenn shakes his head. 

Ridiculous dreams. Daryl Dixon doesn't even know he's alive.

* * *

The kid is watching him again.

Someday soon, he's gonna corner him. Find out exactly what's on his mind. 

 

08\. **Title:** Shake the Disease  
 **Characters/Pairing:** Daryl/Glenn  
 **Time Frame:** Season One  
 **Word Count:** 100

Daryl's breathing heavily in the aftermath; spins to make sure the walkers are staying down. Too close.

And it's too easy to imagine Glenn with a chunk taken out of him, to see those big brown eyes turned up in horror. Too easy to imagine the fever taking hold, 'til they have to put him down like a lame horse. 

He shoves the kid in the shoulder, sends him stumbling backward. "Watch yourself! Nearly got yourself killed, dumbfuck!"

He stalks away before Glenn can reply. And before he can analyze just why he cares about the kid so damn much.

 

09\. **Title:** When Doves Cry  
 **Characters/Pairing:** Morgan  
 **Time Frame:** Pre-Episode 311  
 **Word Count:** 100

The rats chitter and fight when he catches them, viciously going for his fingers, but he thought ahead, got the gloves from the hardware store, ones that not even their needle-sharp teeth can pierce. He shoves them into the cages without a second thought, half-hoping that the walkers will get some of the buggers.

The pigeons, the doves. Those are another story. They flutter in his grasp, eyes wide and wild. Their wings flap crazily against the bars. And when the dead approach, they cry – mournful, terrified.

Morgan covers his ears and reminds himself it's necessary. He must be clear.

 

10\. **Title:** Photograph  
 **Characters/Pairing:** Daryl, Carol  
 **Time Frame:** Post-Season Three  
 **Word Count:** 200

They take their dead back to the prison. Dig holes for them next to the others they've lost, next to T and Lori, next to the empty plot where a Cherokee rose has taken root. 

Daryl lays Merle out carefully on the hard ground. Beside him, Tyrese is going through Hershel's pockets, removing anything of value; Glenn has his head bent over Maggie's body, tears falling unashamedly.

Daryl's hand shakes when he finds the faded photo of the two of them. He remembers when it was taken, a hot summer day the year before their ma died, two years before Merle went to juvie for the second time. Merle's standing behind him, big paw on his shoulder, grinning for the camera. Daryl remembers how it felt, having Merle at his back. How it seemed like nothing could hurt him as long as his big brother was around.

He swipes the back of his hand over his eyes. Doesn't realize he's crumpling the photo until Carols pads up beside him, removes it gently from his hand and smoothes it with long, graceful fingers. Her hand is warm through his worn, soiled shirt when she places the photo carefully in his pocket.


End file.
